answer:In general I don’t, but having participated in a similar thread I think it’s important to specify the kind of alternative or holistic medicine and the kind of illness. Prayer (or meditation, or positive thinking, or similar) is probably more useful in curing depression than, say, cancer. But it’s also probably less effective than CBT+antidepressants. I think people who are against against alternative medicine maintain that belief because it has rarely been proven to work, and I can’t think of a single circumstance in which it has been proven to work better than empirically-based, scientifically-studied Western medicine.